Categories: uncategorized
Date: 05 September 2007 18:21:25
Having put the first bit of this entry as a comment on Jack's blog, I thought it was probably worthy of its own entry on mine!
I decided to have a convalescent afternoon nap today and found, as I got into bed, that a spider had also decided to snooze under the covers! Fortunately I'm not too spider phobic so was able to shake him out onto the floor and enjoy my sleep! I wonder if he was recuperating from a gall-bladder op too!
I am back from my brief break in the Lake District. It was good to go and I'd have been incredibly frustrated and upset if I hadn't have been able to, but I came back pretty tired and more sore than I'd been in the first few days following my op! I'm still on the painkillers but slowly easing myself back into work. Us self-employed people just can't afford to take the full six weeks off that the dr in the hospital offered to give me a sick note for!
Once again the benefits system shows that it is not geared up to people who are self employed (or eserious about working for a living rather than playing the system!!!). While I was signed off sick I was eligible for incapacity benefit, plus could continue to claim working tax credit. The moment I start to work I obviously don't get incapacity benefit, but also because as I'm easing myself back to work early but only working part-time - partly not to lose too much money, partly not to let tutees down and partly because there's no way at the moment I could do my full complement of 8 hours a week gardening, I also lose my working tax credits because I'm not working 30 hours a week! A bit of a catch 22. Then when I am working more than 30 hours in a few weeks time I'll have another lovely time-consuming form to fill in to claim working tax credit again!
I did do some gardening this morning - just a bit over 2 hours -with a break in the middle and light duties only! It really tired me out though and I slept for 2 an a half hours this afternoon. It was lovely to be back down at church though as I do enjoy working there and it gives me some social interaction that I don't normally get working from home. It's really frustrating though as I have drawn up a long list of stuff that needs doing, but I'm not physically up to doing most of it yet. Today I picked up conker cases and litter, spread weed and feed, spread sodium chlorate to kill weeds and marked out an area to be dug out and "hard-cored" to take a new outdoor storage container! We are planning 2 new outdoor storage containers and I am really excited as when we have them I will have some proper storage space for gardening tools! Waaayhay!